


What you think you know

by seraphenanox



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5340836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphenanox/pseuds/seraphenanox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's easy to miss what is happening around you.  And sometimes you have help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What you think you know

**Author's Note:**

> So I will blame a good friend of the plot bunny and also for giving me the courage to post my first attempt in this fandom. Hope you enjoy.  
> It's not beta read so apologize for the abuse to the English language.
> 
> Also this is an AU. I have playing around with the time lines a little to make the ideas work. It will all be explained later in other posts, hopefully.

Watching is how Steve Rogers learns. He learns quickly too. 

It is never just about the reports, the papers, and the documents. Videos and recordings are too often clips and fragments. Few are actually helpful and most are … misleading.

Depending on which Avenger he’s talking about it could be like looking at a blade of grass in a savanna or looking through a cracked lens smeared with grit and grease.

But experiencing it, seeing them in the dark and the light, the field and the Tower, that is how to best see them and learn. 

But mornings, those are usually his alone. Maybe he’ll stumble upon Tony crawling his way up after days hunkered in the workshop. Sometimes he might find Bruce when the scientist has run out of tea in his lab. But most of the time Steve is the first one up and moving. It’s his time to take a run, work out in the gym or even just watch the city below. 

By the time the sun is starting to crest the buildings he could see Natasha, another morning person. He might see Clint who isn’t, but gets dragged along in her wake. 

It’s his habit now, to grab the messenger bag on his way to the common floor. His sketchpad serves as barrier, shield and camouflage. Pad open and pencil in hand no one questions him, bothers him, or really sees him. There are days he wants to admit that he needs that. 

Aromas taunted him when the elevator doors open. Steve smiles because he’s not going to have to worry about pulling something together for breakfast. Fighting to get his fair share maybe, but no one is going to want anything other than what is making that smell. His mouth is already watering from the scent of spices, the salty tang of bacon and the snap hiss of frying potatoes. 

The first time Clint had made this dish Steve had woken up that same smell. In the earliest dawn and the faint wisps of pink light edged the horizon the entire team had zeroed in to the kitchen. They had surprised Clint taking the first pans out of the oven. 

After the fourth pan was gone they had all looked over the dirty dishes and empty pans with contented expressions. Steve had looked up to see Clint on the edge of the group were he seemed to lurk. It was the expression that had struck him. 

A small smile twisted the man’s lips. Not the sharp edged feral one that Hawkeye used, nor the sardonic one Steve expected from Barton, but a one that somehow combined them touched with true amusement. Who wouldn’t have been amused at the sheer volume they all, even Natasha had packed away that morning? But there had been something else too, something that Steve had never expected. He knew that had he not been looking at just that moment there would have been no trace of it. 

Those haunted blue-grey eyes shifted just a little lightening to a blue green and Steve read the emotions that were quickly gone. Surprise and gratitude had shimmered there just for a moment before being blinked away. 

Clint had jumped back into Tony’s pleading for the recipe with stories about this little café in Paris. Considering the next time it was a tiny hole in the wall in Berlin, or a hippie café in Antwerp Steve guess that they were not getting the recipe, ever. 

But that fleeting glimpse made him think. How much more had he not seen. How much more had he missed in even the people he called his friends in this new time. 

He had fought side by side with Black Widow and trusted Hawkeye at his back. He had sparred and worked with Agents Barton and Romanov. 

He could watch them move, had watched them fight. Seen the way that Hawkeye always knew where Black Widow was in a fight. 

The way the Agent Barton was Romanov’s silent shadow. 

Steve had been there, when it was Widow’s call to freeze or move when arrows suddenly arched through the sky.  
Romanov had been the very real and very sharp threat to keep the agents of SHIELD in line after the Battle of Manhattan. 

He had drawn them Hawkeye and Black Widow both from footage and from memory. He used pencil for the sharp and still angles of her face and a splash of green for the way that those hard eyes glittered. Hawkeye was a constant presence; sometimes a shadow and other times Steve contrasted the stark ink of the unblinking eyes and the tense lines. 

Agent Baron and Romanov had been a subject he’d seen many times in the quiet hours at the Hub or in the training center. They’d never objected to his pad and pencil. He’d used charcoals and pencil then. The way they flowed together in the practice ring was a blur of motion and muscle. Before Loki, the way that the lines had been lost between them over files. The curve of Barton’s arm had blended into the way that Romanov had lean up against the archer. That glint of light in green eyes when they laughed and the way that his gaze would always drift over to her. 

But there always had been something missing, some piece to the puzzle that rendered all his work incomplete.  
Now when things are calm and they are home Steve thinks he has more opportunity to see those missing pieces.  
Clint with his smart ass humor that worried Steve a little the way it shaded a touch too much toward self-depreciation. The way that Natasha will flick a too fast to follow glance when she’s watching her friends watch her. 

“Earth to Rogers.” 

He looks up into Clint’s amused blue green eyes watching him from the kitchen. “You hungry? “  
Steve’s stomach growled for him and he felt the heat rising in his face. 

But Clint just laughed and tossed him an orange. “Give us about ten-“

“Twenty.” Natasha corrected looking up from her chopping to give him a brief half smile. 

“Twenty minutes.” 

“Can I help? “ He asks with a slight smile knowing that Clint will decline, but then there’s Natasha. 

“That would be appreciated.” Natasha said while both she and Steve don’t laugh at the yelp and dramatic way Clint rubs his ribs. No point in encouraging such behavior after all. 

Taking hold of a cutting board stacked with knife and a bowl of various colored peppers he just waited. 

“Quarter inch by inch pieces.” It is the only instruction before she turns back to her own task. 

Steve hid his smile in the cleaning and cutting. That was typical Natasha. She never had felt the need to treat him other than as an intelligent human being. Unlike other people that seemed to assume that he couldn’t take care of the simplest tasks she assume that he would figure it out or ask questions. And where Romanov led, Barton followed.

But there were times that Steve wondered. 

There was another explanation, one that made him narrow his eyes. Whenever he saw that sideways glance and spark in those green eyes he always replayed the conversation or the situation. That expression was never something seen in the field or at a briefing. If something new came up there would be a more direct searching stare looking even the faintest trace of hesitation or confusion. No that gleam and flickering glance he suspected was more about her sense of humor than as Tony would put it her “trying to figure out the easiest way to kill us”. 

But that was just a suspicion. Maybe he was just being a little paranoid. Besides it never hurt him so who was he to deny her a small source of amusement. As for the embarrassment, since it was just between them who was he to take away one of the few sources of amusement she seemed to have. 

“I thought I was handling those?” That protest was little bit of whine thrown in to it. 

Of course that earned the man another smack, this one to the shoulder. “Onions still need to done.” 

“Steve-” 

“Steve is not doing onions.” 

“You love making men cry.” Clint’s protest isn’t fooling anyone.

"Too easy.” She smirked flicking a towel at the other man. 

“You just don’t want to be known as the woman that made Captain America cry.” 

“Yes please.” Steve interjects, hoping it will be welcome. “Let’s avoid making Captain America cry.” 

The please smiles mean he wasn’t wrong, but there is an edge to them that he can’t quite translate. It’s a shade of welcoming with hint of something too quickly gone to be analyzed. 

Natasha hums for a moment over her task, before looking back up. He can see the humor in her eyes now and the welcome. 

“The idea of making Steve cry is something to be savored and onions are too pedestrian. You on the other hand if I wanted to make you cry I’d have you in the gym.” 

Steve about choked on his own spit. 

“That was low even for-“ 

Clint’s phone interrupted, or saved the archer from further abuse. Clint used theme songs for his ringtones and this with the low beats and finger snapping wasn’t one that Steve recalled. 

“Hello.” He had the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear as he continued to stir the potatoes and check the bacon.  
Not SHIELD then, the tone would have been more formal. The expression on Clint’s face was too guarded for another Avenger or someone related to the group. But then the expression shifted, more annoyed and hard as he turned the stove off and moved the pan off the eye. The clean and precise movements were a shade off battle ready, but close. 

“I thought we discussed this. Nat and I can take care of it.” Now the tone was a little more soothing, more placating. Steve knew how well that tone worked and winced. 

Super soldier hearing came with the serum and he wasn’t particularly bothered by listening in. The Avengers were quite aware of his range. If Clint wanted privacy, he would have moved or asked. 

It was the snap and snarl tone in the response that had his head jerking back up. She was apparently not amused by Clint’s attempt. While he couldn’t understand what was being said or even who it was Natasha evidently did from the Natasha cocked an eyebrow and putting down the knife. She moved over to the archer with languid and smooth movement. Clint shifted and jumped up on the counter allowing her room to get in close. 

“Let us help you.” Gone was the amenable expression. Cool eyes focused on a high point on the wall. Steve could see the line of tension that rippled up Hawkeye’s back. He watched the way those eyes darted around to points only the archer could see. 

“No I didn’t say you weren’t capable. I said that this job is just too big for one person, even you. “ It was a little strange to hear that patent tone come out of the still features

The ding of the elevator distracted him for a moment, but only to hear the hesitant steps and the confident stride, Bruce and Tony. Steve looked back at the kitchen and his eyes narrowed. 

A faint smirk on Natasha’s lips he can’t see her face, but does see the way that she turns to the archer as if listening to his conversation and his slight nod. 

“The three of us could have it knocked out in less than a day. In and out and no evidence left behind that they were there.” Another pause had those jaw muscle clenching. “Fine, talk to the scary lady.” 

Clint tossed the cell phone over. “Ish.”

Natasha takes it and turns around to rest her arms on the counter. Steve sees the roll her eyes, but no blankness, just feral amusement. 

“Hey Cap-“ Tony woofs in surprise when Bruce’s arm stops him mid-step. Steve watches first Bruce then Tony see the tableau in the kitchen. He can just image what is going on in their minds seeing Clint perched up on the counter muscles tense and Natasha tucked tightly against him. 

That look, he’s seen it in the field. It’s evident when Black Widow will be allowed to run wild and unrestrained. It’s a bit jarring to see it directed at someone or something off the field. 

“Talk to me.” Her green eyes intently focusing on the person on the other end of the line. 

Thoughts whirled in his mind and he tried to focus on the peppers. SHIELD hadn’t sent them out even individually in more than a month. The second time he almost sliced a finger, he puts down the knife. 

Her tone wasn’t placating like Clint's, it’s argumentative. And of course she’s no longer speaking English. Sometimes he can guess what being said if the words sound familiar, but it’s like nothing he’s ever heard before so other than assuming that the one syllable words are yes and no he’s got no clue. 

He did catch the way that Bruce and Tony stop as they see Hawkeye’s focused gaze take on that dreamy look when he’s being told he gets to shoot things. 

“No.” Natasha states firmly back to English. “We can be there tomorrow morning.” Her blank expression slips a bit more to fond exasperation. “Please just wait for us before you get started.” 

Steve catches another one of those Looks and she leans a little closer into Hawkeye. He starts carding calloused fingers through her red hair. 

“Get the gear together for us. We can’t transport stuff like that on a plane.” She nods to whatever being said. “Can’t put it on the books.” 

Natasha’s free hand rubs up and down her partner’s bare arm. “We do love dealing with these types of problems.” 

He has to look away. Steve reaches again for the peppers, but they are gone. Bruce has slid into seat next to him and taken over the slicing. The scientist is focused on that task and his breathing is even. As for Tony, the engineer, is leaning up against the dividing wall a manic expression on his face but now his brow is a little furrowed. He seems to be still up for stirring things to see what might go boom, but there is a flicker of uncertainty there. 

“This is acceptable.” The Black widow purr has Bruce looking back up and the grin vanishing off Tony’s face. Steve takes the chance to scoop up the finished pepper and set them on the pass through. 

Hawkeye is focused on his partner and where her hand is tapping against his arm. “Make sure she gets enough lye. We’ll need to dissolve the cores. “

Black Widow nods. “Did you hear that? Also we’re going to need axes to take the limbs off too.” 

Steve just sits back down as the comments get worse and worse. 

“Tell her no tarps this time. Garbage bags are cheaper and work just as well.” He snaps his fingers. “Shovels.”  
Steve swallows his comment at the pleased hum from the archer. He has to blink a few times to get his expression under control. 

Bruce’s face is a shade paler and wearily rubbing his eyebrows. Tony’s expression now is close to horror. 

“That should be everything we need.” The red haired assassin smiles. 

“If she waits for us I’ll give her some of those explosive tips she so fond of.” Hawkeye’s cooing has a mocking and sharp edge.  
Steve has to wipe a grin off his face before anyone else sees it. The others are looking at the kitchen with horror and he’s more amused, a little disturbed but still amused. 

“We’ll see you soon.” Hawkeye’s contribution is kissy noises that earn him another smack. 

Ending the call she taps the phone against her lips a few times. There is a grin on her face a combination of playful and wild that had Tony sliding down the wall with a “meep” and a pale complexion. 

Sharing a look with her partner Steve also sees that look one last time. “She’s not going to wait is she?” 

He has to bite the inside of his cheek not to laugh at the put on Clint’s face. “No, so leave today?” 

“After breakfast.” Steve interjects hoping for a stern tone.

The look at him and Steve wonders if anyone sees what he does. 

They have another silent conversation. 

“After breakfast.” Natasha agrees.  
**

It isn’t until the late the next evening that they return .

From the state of their clothes and hair either they didn’t bother to clean up or… Steve starts plotting revenge in his head now. He’s had almost two days of listening to speculation and frustration from when Tony couldn’t find a trace of where the two had absconded too. He’s had to sooth ruffled feathers and quash concerns about rogue agents and how to hide it from Fury. 

Dirt and something green is smeared across Clint’s chest, his face a mass of small scratches. His hands are pink from scrubbing, but dirt had clung stubbornly under his nails. There are tears in the t-shirt he is wearing and underneath are long red scraps. 

His partner may be more posed and collected, but there are leaves and twigs tangled in the red locks. The smug of dirt across her cheek is dry but the green smear across the back her shirt still glistens slightly.  
Looking at them he tried for concerned. He tries for stoic. Then he makes the mistake of looking at the shocked expression of the others and just tries to not choke on his own laughter. 

“And we were victorious.” Clint’s smile was wicked as he places a battered tree limb on the table. 

Steve fell out of his chair.


End file.
